1. Technical Field
The present invention relates to storage devices in general, and in particular to tape drives. Still more particularly, the present invention relates to a method and apparatus for controlling data rate of a tape drive.
2. Description of Related Art
Computer systems typically operate at an exceeding high data rate. Thus, computer systems commonly require peripheral storage devices, such as tape drives, to also have relatively high throughput in order to keep pace. However, when a tape drive attempts to write data at a high rate, the number of write skips tends to also increase. A write skip is an error, such as a corrupted or missing codeword quad (CQ), that occurs during a write operation. Write skips can decrease the storage capacity and performance margins of a tape drive.
Consequently, it would be desirable to provide a method for controlling data rate of a tape drive to improve its performance.